


Light in Purgatory

by MartinusMiraculorum



Category: Bomb Girls
Genre: F/F, post-Blood Relations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-22 13:59:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17061095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MartinusMiraculorum/pseuds/MartinusMiraculorum
Summary: Betty made the ultimate sacrifice for the woman she loved. Kate Andrews has no intention of allowing her to suffer alone.(One-shot)





	Light in Purgatory

There was something about this place that felt like death.

It was true that Kate Andrews (for that was who she was and always would be) had never really lived in a life full of color. In her childhood, she’d worn white, black, shades of grey, and maybe a dark blue on occasion. Colors that faded into the background, colors that did not draw attention. Demure, proper, restrained. Covering, _encasing_ a body in the image of that first Sinner, Eve.

It was not as though her life at VicMu was all that different, though the bright blues of the women’s turbans, even the yellow paint around the shell-casings, the bright red signs warning about the dangers of any kind of ignition source, less they all be blown before their time to Kingdom Come, provided more color in her surroundings than she had been accustomed to.

Gladys - glamorous, elegant, beautiful Gladys - brought a wardrobe with every color of the rainbow into Kate’s life, and she found she rather liked the idea of some of those colors on herself. She had let her hair grow since she ran away, and now she would catch a swish of burnt copper out of the corner of her eye when she turned her head.

Her hair was up now. Proper. Restrained. Like this place, with its crumbling gray walls, dark shadows, rust-brown bars over the windows, grungy floors. What light filtered through was leaden, washed-out. This was not a place where people lived, it said. This was a place where people’s lives _stopped._ They didn’t die here. They were frozen here, cut away from the lives they had known. In some ways, it felt worse than death. Death offered the possibility of an end, of change, even it was permanent. And of course, God willing, it offered the promise of paradise to come.

Or the fires of all the hells, should God turn His back on you.

It felt, to Kate Andrews, as though God had turned his back on this place. No going back, no going forward.

Nervously, she adjusted her hat as she neared a doorway, a beefy, red-faced officer grunting as he led her down the lifeless corridor. Then he pushed open the door, hard, and it banged against the opposite wall, and Kate jumped. He turned back, as if expecting this, a grim smile on his face.

“Your rich friend bought you _five minutes_. That’s all. You’re lucky to get that much.”

She nodded hurriedly, moving towards the door. The guard’s hand shot out and blocked her path, catching her right in the chest, which made her squirm even more. She told herself to be strong. To be strong like Betty. 

“No. Touching,” he grunted, and there was something particularly menacing in his tone, something that sent a shiver through Kate’s already shaking frame. Again, a frantic nod, and with another grunt, he lifted his arm away. Kate crossed hers, already curling in on herself. She could just see…

Ah. There she was. And in that moment she flashed back to the previous night, pacing around her small room in the boarding house, almost making herself dizzy, wondering what in the Lord’s name a person could possibly say to someone who had…who had given Kate Andrews every single thing she had. Her freedom, her pride, her dignity, her…love. And who on that fateful day, after they had lain staring into the other’s eyes and holding hands like it was all that was keeping them bound to this earth, had asked nothing in return. 

What kind of person could do that? What kind of person could, without remorse, give all that? What kind of a _hero_ did you have to be? And all for, God forgive her, for some ungrateful, worthless _thing_ who not a year earlier had called her _disgusting_ aloud, and worse things in her own mind.

It should be her in there, she knew. Paying for her sins. For murder was a sin, no matter the victim, no matter the murderer. She didn’t really remember what had, exactly, happened when she had found herself on that landing, Betty pressed into her, a raging storm of vengeance and nightmares in their wake. She didn’t remember who had pushed whom, who had given ground and who had taken it, how her damned, yes, _damned_ father had ended up against the railing, and then toppled over it, into the darkness and out of this life with a sickening thud.

“Can’t believe it’s really you.”

Her mind returned to the present with a jolt that was almost physical, her eyes snapping off from where they had been idly tracing the patterns of damp on the tiled floor. Their gazes met, and Kate’s heart actually stopped.

 

 

 

All she had been told was that she had a visitor. She was, she knew, entitled to know who was calling on her, and allowed to decline if she so wished. And if Harry or Johnny had been on duty that morning – they were hard men, but fair, never causing any more trouble than circumstances demanded – she might have. But not Walter, who was perhaps the only thing in this entire wretched, forsaken place that truly scared her. Her right forearm ached at the thought. That was six months ago.

But her pain, her fear, the apathy that crushed her hopes and made her wonder if she was already dead and just didn’t know it yet, all of that was swept away in one moment. _Kate. She’s here. She’s really, really here._

“Can’t believe it’s really you,” Betty croaked.

Kate looked up like a child who had been caught doing something naughty. _God above, she’s scared of me._

But Kate, as she had done more and more in the time that Betty had known her, overcame that fear. “It’s me, alright. I don’t have long.” 

Betty nodded, and tried to rise to meet her, but her wrist was jarred by the cuff that bit into it as the short chain was pulled taught, sending a wave of pain all the way to her shoulder. She grimaced.

Like some sort of angel of mercy, Kate was at her side in a moment, one hand on her aching shoulder, another lying gently on Betty’s left hand. There was a loud grunt from the door. Warden Chambers was standing there, chewing his dip, watching them out of the corner of his eye. Kate remembered herself then, and drew back. The fading sense of her touch almost brought tears to Betty’s eyes. It had been _so long_.

Betty had heard the rumors about women’s prisons, and had, sure enough, found that in one aspect, she was not alone. Unfortunately, the wardens and guards had heard the same rumors. A touch on the shoulder could get you put in solitary. Or worse, if Walter was around.  Walter, who always had his battered bible tucked into his uniform jacket. Walter, who had more than once used the heavy leather of that book to dispense his own kind of justice. 

Words failed her now, even as she told herself she was wasting valuable seconds silently staring at Kate. She willed the other girl to say something. She was too busy looking over every detail of her face, noting the shadows around her eyes, the crease on her forehead, the way her lips were shaking as she bit down slightly. Yes, her lips. Betty spent some time on those. She was wearing lipstick; she must have borrowed it from Vera, or maybe Gladys.

“I missed you,” Kate squeaked out. “And…” she sat now, heavily, breathing coming raggedly now. 

“I missed you too. So very, very much.” The words were out of Betty’s mouth before she could even think of something else. 

Kate stared at her, all church-mouse now, her eyes wide open, her lips slightly parted. “I…Gladys, well, Gladys got me here, but she said…she said I should go. She sends her…her love.”

Betty nodded. “Tell her I do too.”

Kate nodded, almost mirroring Betty now, as if checking off a point on a mental list.

 _I’m okay_ , Betty wanted to say, even if she wasn’t sure it was really true. Her arm ached again. Walter had stepped on it – no, _stomped_ on it, when she had tried to stop him…taking one of the girls ‘aside’. She had been new then, just two weeks. She heard about it from the other girls, and she had been warned to keep her head down, but when he’d cornered Lily, a frail girl who spoke in whispers, who had sneaked food from the cafeteria when Betty was too sick to move, her rage had won. She’d landed a solid blow before she’d been hurled into the wall like a rag doll. Then he’d brought his foot down, and her world exploded into red.

But that was then. This was now. 

“Are you…are they…” Kate began.

“I’m still alive,” Betty offered. She knew how terrible she must look. “I’m still kickin’.”

“Good,’ Kate said. “That’s good. You’re strong. You’re…I could never…”

Betty wanted to tell her otherwise but honestly wasn’t sure. On the one hand, even if Kate never said a word, she had been through her own hell, and the scars that marred her flesh and the night terrors that marred her mind were all the testament to her toughness that Betty needed. If she had survived that…but this was different. Or was it? She couldn’t really know. She was just glad to have spared Kate this…this life.

“Are you still singing?” Betty said.

“Not…not where I was before,” she said. “I can’t…it’s not that I think…I just…”

“Yeah, that’s okay. But church? Leon?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Still singing there.”

“Good.”

“Betty…” There was something in Kate’s tone that told her exactly what was coming.

“Kate, don’t. Please don’t.”

“But I can’t!” she said, louder than Betty had expected. “I can’t just not say it. I can’t…I have to…what you did for me, what you…”

“I want you to _live_ , Kate,” Betty said, meeting her eyes. “I want you to live even if I can’t. I want you to be happy.”

“I can’t,” Kate whispered. “Not with you…not like this.”

Betty tried not to groan. “Kate, I want you to…”

“No, but I don’t want to be.”

“Happy?” Betty asked. “Can’t you do that for me? That’s what I want from you. Not apologies, not thanks. I want you to be happy.” Her voice nearly broke.

“Why?”

One word carried ten questions: Why did you do it? Why do you want me to be happy while you waste away? Why am I worth it?

“Why what?”

“Why,” Kate choked back a sob. “Why are you being such a dar- such a _damn_ hero?”

There was truly nothing left to lose, and so she said it. “Because I love you. There’s nothing more to it, Katie. Just love.” 

Kate was silent, though her eyes spoke volumes.

Betty smiled. “It’s funny, really. I go all my life thinking that I will never someone I can really, truly love. But I did. And they can’t take that away from me, no matter what. That’s what love is. Love is never giving up.”

“I’ll never give up on you,” Kate burst out. “Never." 

“Then do one thing for me, Kate Andrews,” Betty said. “Don’t give up on yourself.”

There was silence again. Emotions roiled behind Kate’s eyes, her lip quavered, and she began. “Betty, I…”

“Time’s up, ladies.”

“Kate?” Betty said, hoping for one more word, no, two really, in the fraction of time it took the warden to cross the room.

The other girl just shook her head desperately

As the warden reached the table, laying a hand on Kate’s shoulder, Betty saw the truth and smiled. “I know.”

Kate’s eyes went wide, and then she was pulled to her feet, and Betty had to fight back the urge to throttle the man.

“I said, time’s _up!_ ”

To everyone’s surprise, including her own, Kate shook him off. There was a fire in those doe eyes for a moment, and it sent a thrill through Betty. _There’s my girl_ , she thought fondly.

“Oh, Vera, and Lorna, of course…” but this time Kate wilted under the glare of the warden. Betty nodded. She knew.

Kate met her eyes one that time before she was pushed through the door. “Goodbye.”

Betty tried to say something but no words came. She felt a darkness closing in on her, but at the center, shining brighter than any star, there was a light. There was _life._

“Keep singing, Katie,” she said at last, hoping the words made it through the door before it was slammed shut.

_And promise me, when this is over, you will sing for me again, my angel._

**Author's Note:**

> It's been absolutely ages since I watched Bomb Girls but this was sitting on my computer and seemed presentable enough.


End file.
